Guild Wars 2

Ice Spike: The cooldown of this skill has been increased from 4 seconds to 6 seconds and now causes a blast finisher when the spike lands.
The staff has numerous combo fields but has limited ability to utilize them. Adding a blast finisher to Ice Spike gives another opportunity for staff players to set up their own combos. We have slightly increased the cooldown to compensate for the strength of a blast finisher.

Slightly? 50% increase in cooldown!!!!

So my main damage skill whilst in water now has an added 50% cooldown. kitten …

It’s another blast finisher. I’m not complaining. Eruption was a terrible blast finisher, and you shouldn’t be using water as your main source of damage anyway. Just use one Ice Spike for a blast and some burst, and then swap to another attunement for more damage. Honestly, I see nothing wrong with this change in the end. Water isn’t any less bursty from this. It only lost DPS, which it should never be used for anyway.

I’m not there for maximum dps. I’m a support ele, so main role is healing and keeping people alive..my water 1 skill heals every hit, so I’m mainly in water. If I play around in fire, etc then sure I’ll tag more people, but it won’t be much use as we’ll all be dead….

And the spike is used in combination with a commanders movements to slow that section of the enemy down that we want to spike. At 4 seconds cool down it was very useful for this, at 6 seconds it’s not that good. It also did decent damage on downed people.

Ice spike was my main tag skill. The changes aren’t going to encourage more people to play ele usefully- we’re just going to see more pve glass eles not knowing how to support the group and running away when the group starts losing ( I already watch eles in wvw, amazing how many are only ever in fire or air, with many not even switching to water when they need a heal…and whilst our people are dying all around them).

If we want more dps, I’m on my necro.

Oh god , come on man … It’s not that big of a change , quit trying to make it out like it is.

Jesus christ

Yea sure, you would always stay in water and use Water Spike 2x, before swapping out of water wouldn’t you?

You use this skill to create red circles and to cleave downs, along with the other #2 skills in earth and fire.

Its not a 50% dmg reduction but its less dps for sure. Staff just not a dmg wepon it has not been for a long time. The metor nerf was the true death of its dmg. Its a good support wepon now though. Only if they would fix air 2 out of all the staff skills why keep such a weak skill on such a long cast time and long cd is comply beyond me.

Yea I don’t get it either, lightning surge is such a trash skill. Hope they completely rework it, as it is now, I don’t see any way to turn it into a decent skill.
The blast in water is nice though.

I really like this change. Having a low-CD blast finisher in Water Staff is very nice.

Except, you know..ice spike being a blast finisher allows for you to blast even more in a water field to burst heal groups, which water is known for. Rather than whining, look at the advantage of having another blast right on the very attunement that has a water field. If you view water as support, why care about ice spike’s damage capacity?

What I find amazing is that tey try there hardest to kill every bunker build in pvp and achieve this in the whole game and then, In just a patch it’s like they suddenly find that there is not enough survivability in PvP only…

What is the logic in suddenly giving all profession more heals in PvP when having player that survive in this game mode seem to be there main concern? I just can’t understand those devs…

Even more amazing is that players complains that ele is stuck into a support role and… they just add more support.

Is gust a problem? yes! Is it because it hit unreliably? No! it’s because it does have an unnecessary cast time! All this patch is full of changes that make nosense. I even doublechecked to be sure that we weren’t on april’s fools day again.

Awesome!!!

From PvE perspective:
I wouldn’t ever want to remain in Water long enough to cast Ice Spike twice, so I will likely never notice the increased cooldown. The added blast finisher is nice in solo play scenarios. I can Earth 2 → Water 2 → Fire 2 for some easy might, fury and damage. Oh, and earth 2 now cripples? Sweet. I mean, I should still probably not bother because opening with Air Overload will finish stuff quicker, but it’s nice to have an alternative for fooling around. Or just minor prestacking.

From WvW perspective:
Blast in Water? Yes, please.

Jski.6180:

Its not a 50% dmg reduction but its less dps for sure. Staff just not a dmg wepon it has not been for a long time. The metor nerf was the true death of its dmg. Its a good support wepon now though. Only if they would fix air 2 out of all the staff skills why keep such a weak skill on such a long cast time and long cd is comply beyond me.

Maybe they need us to tell them what needs looking at from a wvw perspective.

Having run around last night on ele in wvw, the blast is somewhat useful but quite tricky to pull off in the heat of battle, as you need to cast ice spike first, then geyser at that spot then hope you got the right spot for the blast to be effective. Do it the other way around and geyser is finished before the spike hits. Overall, you are reliant on someone else placing the field to be blasted.

Fire 2 change is quite useful sometimes.

All in all, staff ele just doesn’t feel all that useful in wvw any more with the huge condi piles and massive spike damage. Having to stand still while meteor shower channels isn’t much fun- what other class has to do that for such a feeble skill? Imagine if CoR rooted you to the spot for 4 seconds and did 1/3 the damage it now does….

Air 2 is just a joke.

Alright I guess. Ice spike wasn’t really bad though. Air 2 has been the worst for a long time. Longest cooldown of all the #2 staff skills, and its a long cast preventative skill (blind) with just medium damage. Playing air in staff just doesn’t flow at all, there is nothing to spam or work on while in the attunement waiting for skills to come up. In fire you can keep dpsing with fireball, etc…in water, healing with water blasts, etc…in earth, spam weakness/projectile finisher and eruption is up fairly often. Then you go into air and…lightning bolt spam? Ugh.

Baldrick.8967:

Jski.6180:

Its not a 50% dmg reduction but its less dps for sure. Staff just not a dmg wepon it has not been for a long time. The metor nerf was the true death of its dmg. Its a good support wepon now though. Only if they would fix air 2 out of all the staff skills why keep such a weak skill on such a long cast time and long cd is comply beyond me.

Maybe they need us to tell them what needs looking at from a wvw perspective.

Having run around last night on ele in wvw, the blast is somewhat useful but quite tricky to pull off in the heat of battle, as you need to cast ice spike first, then geyser at that spot then hope you got the right spot for the blast to be effective. Do it the other way around and geyser is finished before the spike hits. Overall, you are reliant on someone else placing the field to be blasted.

Fire 2 change is quite useful sometimes.

All in all, staff ele just doesn’t feel all that useful in wvw any more with the huge condi piles and massive spike damage. Having to stand still while meteor shower channels isn’t much fun- what other class has to do that for such a feeble skill? Imagine if CoR rooted you to the spot for 4 seconds and did 1/3 the damage it now does….

Air 2 is just a joke.

Ya power dmg has gone away for the most part in wvw staff for ele was never any thing but a power dmg tool. Ele is very much a pigpen-hold support only class in wvw.

Glad I read this thread…was having trouble last night getting Ice Spike to land before Geyser disappeared…I see I have to reverse the casting order! However, why does Ice Spike list a 3/4 second cast time, but then there’s still at least a full second before the stupid spike actually lands? Shouldn’t they list that somewhere so that you know it’s not going to hit in time to be an effective finisher? You’d think a “finisher” was meant to be cast after the “field”…there’s no logic behind that in this particular application.

Sylvyn.4750:

Glad I read this thread…was having trouble last night getting Ice Spike to land before Geyser disappeared…I see I have to reverse the casting order! However, why does Ice Spike list a 3/4 second cast time, but then there’s still at least a full second before the stupid spike actually lands? Shouldn’t they list that somewhere so that you know it’s not going to hit in time to be an effective finisher? You’d think a “finisher” was meant to be cast after the “field”…there’s no logic behind that in this particular application.

Thats the cast time. Like dragon’s tooth it has an animation time as well.

Just fyi skill 2 is aoe I believe on air staff. Your opinion is still valid, but sometimes it might be worth sending an AOE blind.

Another trick I think alot of ppl might not know about meteor shower. Obvi is has a far range BUT if you cast metoer shower at max range then use lightning flash to blink as far as possible away from your target, it won’t interrupt your cast and continue post teleport. You can either do that or AOE yourself.and when your about to be hit, use it as a dodge. Alot of times when walls are being sieged I get close enuf to meteor shower then blink to safety while I kill 3-10 ppl. I guess most eles just get pulled off the wall or killed themselves sitting their channeling it.

I like to run superspeed, arcane shield, and blink in wvw for maximum uptime on channels for both OLs and meteor shower.

Obvi I’m not a pro, but if you don’t know how blink interacts it may change your perspective

Good tips, thanks!

I am a wvw player and I’m really happy with this change…. allow me to blast more my water fields with my blackline ele.

2 blast for 3water-? 2earth+2water+3water
4 blast for 5water-? 2water+5water+2earth+dodge on earth.

Offtopic: I saw that some people speak before about meteor shower. Another trick that maybe not all the people know to cast MS for long range is: use your 4fire (rollback) and inmediatly before the animation starts, use MS (5fire) at max range. The result of this is that you will cast MS at the end of the rollback (extra 450 more distance) but on the selected place…. the MS channel will be performed in a place out of range (1650) even if the damage occurs in the right place.

You have to do it really quick (4fire+5fire), but with some practice is easy to do.

You can, additionally use blink to cast it at 2500 range…. but that doesnt used to be necessary xD

Roman God of War.6953:

Just fyi skill 2 is aoe I believe on air staff. Your opinion is still valid, but sometimes it might be worth sending an AOE blind.

Another trick I think alot of ppl might not know about meteor shower. Obvi is has a far range BUT if you cast metoer shower at max range then use lightning flash to blink as far as possible away from your target, it won’t interrupt your cast and continue post teleport. You can either do that or AOE yourself.and when your about to be hit, use it as a dodge. Alot of times when walls are being sieged I get close enuf to meteor shower then blink to safety while I kill 3-10 ppl. I guess most eles just get pulled off the wall or killed themselves sitting their channeling it.

I like to run superspeed, arcane shield, and blink in wvw for maximum uptime on channels for both OLs and meteor shower.

Obvi I’m not a pro, but if you don’t know how blink interacts it may change your perspective

Air 2 has the 2ed longest cast time for staff skills and dose some of the lowest dmg and worst soft cc in the game. Its not that it takes to long for the skill to go off its the fact that the cast time where you cant cast any other skills with a cast time is so long due to its “flashy cast effect” (the reason why i think they are unwilling to update the skill) that makes it worthless. The fix would be just to make it an aoe cone attk like the druid version of it. Every one in it will be blinded and take dmg.

Earth 5 could use an update too. It realty needs to be faster. As well as earth 1 something that should be aoe for 3 targets with a aoe projectile effect too.

Now that they seem to be done with there rule of finniser / fields on the same atument they need to look into making an earth field for ele class and maybe ele only. Bleed projectile, crippler wherle, protection blast, and root leap.

Fire 3 should have some other effect to it. Maybe a if the target is lower hp add more burns making it a good ending tool. (just off the top of my head it needs to do more burning or more dmg or some type of supported effect).

Jski.6180:

Roman God of War.6953:

Just fyi skill 2 is aoe I believe on air staff. Your opinion is still valid, but sometimes it might be worth sending an AOE blind.

Another trick I think alot of ppl might not know about meteor shower. Obvi is has a far range BUT if you cast metoer shower at max range then use lightning flash to blink as far as possible away from your target, it won’t interrupt your cast and continue post teleport. You can either do that or AOE yourself.and when your about to be hit, use it as a dodge. Alot of times when walls are being sieged I get close enuf to meteor shower then blink to safety while I kill 3-10 ppl. I guess most eles just get pulled off the wall or killed themselves sitting their channeling it.

I like to run superspeed, arcane shield, and blink in wvw for maximum uptime on channels for both OLs and meteor shower.

Obvi I’m not a pro, but if you don’t know how blink interacts it may change your perspective

Air 2 has the 2ed longest cast time for staff skills and dose some of the lowest dmg and worst soft cc in the game. Its not that it takes to long for the skill to go off its the fact that the cast time where you cant cast any other skills with a cast time is so long due to its “flashy cast effect” (the reason why i think they are unwilling to update the skill) that makes it worthless. The fix would be just to make it an aoe cone attk like the druid version of it. Every one in it will be blinded and take dmg.

Earth 5 could use an update too. It realty needs to be faster. As well as earth 1 something that should be aoe for 3 targets with a aoe projectile effect too.

Now that they seem to be done with there rule of finniser / fields on the same atument they need to look into making an earth field for ele class and maybe ele only. Bleed projectile, crippler wherle, protection blast, and root leap.

Fire 3 should have some other effect to it. Maybe a if the target is lower hp add more burns making it a good ending tool. (just off the top of my head it needs to do more burning or more dmg or some type of supported effect).

Tbh I have no idea what they should or shouldn’t change. My comment on air was just some niche ways to use it if your desperate to live due to a kittened up rotation.

But sure alot of the changes you suggest sound like they would be cool live!

Say it with me: One…. TWO! There you can use Ice Spike now! Go!

An explo finisher, an ice field and two water fields in one attunement. How can anyone complain about this???
Would be nice if anet could change:
Fire#2 so that the first damage ticks instantly and not after one second,
Air#2 recude activation time from 1,5 seconds to at least 1 second.

Or add a new effect.

Activation time: 0,5 seconds
Cooldown: 10 seconds
Damage and blind foes near your target. If a foe is affected by hard cc (knockback, knockdown, stun etc..) damage dealt to him is increased by 15% for 2 seconds.

Jski.6180:

Now that they seem to be done with there rule of finniser / fields on the same atument they need to look into making an earth field for ele class and maybe ele only. Bleed projectile, crippler wherle, protection blast, and root leap.

Isn’t an earth field basically just a field? And honestly that sounds a bit like ranger territory to me. Could be both though.

Yannir.4132:

Jski.6180:

Now that they seem to be done with there rule of finniser / fields on the same atument they need to look into making an earth field for ele class and maybe ele only. Bleed projectile, crippler wherle, protection blast, and root leap.

Isn’t an earth field basically just a field? And honestly that sounds a bit like ranger territory to me. Could be both though.

Hehe funny you could say water fields are just wet field etc.. fields are magic aimed so there no field with out the effect. I could see ranger getting an earth field too it fits there nacher magic like effect. There no combo finniser for bleed cripal roots or protection so there room for an earth field.

Jski.6180:

Yannir.4132:

Jski.6180:

Now that they seem to be done with there rule of finniser / fields on the same atument they need to look into making an earth field for ele class and maybe ele only. Bleed projectile, crippler wherle, protection blast, and root leap.

Isn’t an earth field basically just a field? And honestly that sounds a bit like ranger territory to me. Could be both though.

Hehe funny you could say water fields are just wet field etc.. fields are magic aimed so there no field with out the effect. I could see ranger getting an earth field too it fits there nacher magic like effect. There no combo finniser for bleed cripal roots or protection so there room for an earth field.

Lets not give them ways to add more brainless condi spam into wvw. Protection or maybe resist is what is needed from an earth field, no more condi. Power builds are pretty much useless enough already at this point especially on ele. I miss when meteor used to actually be a threat, It needs to do like 4X the damage it does now to be on par with a necro’s aoe condi spam.

And anyone that think’s that would be op is a complete idiot. Necro can press 2 buttons and instakill half a zerg in 2 condi ticks. So meteors hitting for like 10-15k each would be perfectly fine if they consider necro’s burst balanced. And meteor can be easily avoided as well, you can literally sidestep them, no need to even dodge.